


Public Menace No. 1

by heynerd



Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crack, Villain!Peter, will probably end up peter/johnny storm jsyk, yeah i dunno either
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-14
Updated: 2016-07-08
Packaged: 2018-07-15 03:24:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7204892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heynerd/pseuds/heynerd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter Parker is a terrible villain, in multiple senses of the word 'terrible' and an ambiguous sense of the word 'villain'. He is, however, New York's most unwanted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Which Peter Makes Bad Decisions

Before now, Peter had certainly been aware of the world's general unfairness. There was no logic or rationality to it – good things happened to bad people, bad things happened to good people, and it was the duty of each person to do the best they could to bring a little goodness to the world. To make it better and brighter for everyone.

Apparently insurance companies neglected to get memos about that sort of thing.

And really – really, no matter how _hard_ he tried to spin it (and he'd tried _damn_ hard, rest assured), it was all his fault, wasn't it?

Peter had been the one who'd walked away from the idiot, asshole psycho. He might not have held the knife that had found its way into Uncle Ben, but he _could_ have stopped it. He'd had the chance. And he hadn't.

And now a good, kind man, the type of person who only wanted to do his best for people, was on life support. Barely responsive. Now Peter had to sit on the stairs, knuckles white as he gripped his knees, torn between cowering away in shame and going to comfort Aunt May, the woman quietly sobbing at the kitchen table over the hospital fees that were forcing her to choose between the husband who might never wake up, and the house they'd made a home.

Because bad things happened to good people. Because of Peter.

Because it was _all his fault_.

Own up to your mistakes, Uncle Ben had always told him. Accept them as your own, and do your best to fix them. If you've got someone into trouble, someone who doesn't deserve it, help get them back _out_ of it.

Peter uncurled his aching fingers, gently pushed himself to his feet, and crept upstairs. Eighty-thousand dollars and rising every week – Peter Parker, high-school nerd and bully-target, couldn't hope to pay that off. Not in _years_ , let alone the month they had left.

But a guy with newly-developed superpowers? Yeah. It made his stomach roil with even more guilt, but shoving it down to nothing took only the brief memory of Uncle Ben's face, pale and gaunt, tubes snaking up his nose, monitors dully bleeping his heart-rate, the lack of response-

Yeah. _This... this definitely wasn't what Uncle Ben meant_ , Peter reluctantly admitted, tugging the clumsily-altered balaclava from under his mattress, turning it over in his hands. _But it's not like there's a lot of options, and – and I'll make sure nobody gets hurt. Nobody. This was_ my _fault._

He stilled; from downstairs, the sound of a chair scraping as Aunt May rose, doubtless hiding the bills away again, tucked in the drawer where she thought Peter didn't know about them. He breathed deeply, the tinge of dread in his gut turning to solid determination.

“My fault,” Peter muttered, confirming it as he'd done every day since. “ _My_ responsibility.”

With his superpowers and intellect combined, what could possibly go wrong?

 

* * *

 

As it turned out, there were a lot of things that could go wrong.

The first sticking point had been whether to bust up some major drug or arms deal, where a large sum of money would be, and 'borrow' some of it, or to bust up something more official (i.e., a bank), also where a large sum of money would be, and 'borrow' some of it.

The trouble with smashing his way into an illegal trade was that a) they didn't tend to advertise their whereabouts, and b) the people involved tended to be heavily armed, and would probably also try to hunt down the nice spider-themed guy who'd just ripped them off. Plus, the trouble with hauling at least $80,000 in cash away with him.

The problem with the _bank_ however, was that a) it was massively illegal and he'd have the full force of the law after him, b) people who weren't drugs/arms dealers might get hurt, and again, the trouble with hauling $80,000 in cash away, not to mention making sure it wasn't marked or tagged first.

On the bright side, banks were much easier to find than drug deals, and insurance companies were less likely to stiff _them_ than they would Aunt May, so there was no real loser.

Well, except the insurance company, and Peter wasn't particularly well-inclined towards them, if 'not well-inclined' could be summed up as 'fuck 'em all'.

The issue was considered and worried over from all angles (while he was working on his costume, naturally – full body to prevent fingerprints, a bit of discreet padding here and there to throw off his body shape, a tight hair net under the costume which was _technically_ to prevent any strands of loose hair (and thus DNA) escaping, but was actually because his hair made stupid-looking, lumpy indentations under the balaclava...

Just because Peter was about to piss off a bunch of people to the point of being shot at, didn't mean he had to look like crap while he did it, okay?

Two days later, it was ready.

It looked...

Okay, it looked like a teenager had thrown together a balaclava/hoodie/sweatpants/gloves/boots combo and was going to go rob someone, _BUT_ . The most important thing, Peter firmly told himself as he gazed down upon the clothes carefully arranged across his bed – the _most_ important thing, was that they matched. Mostly. The eye-lenses he'd managed to attach to the balaclava were a nice touch, right? Almost professional! He'd attempted to sew a spider design onto the hoodie and yeah, okay, kind of a disaster, but that had all been unpicked, so lesson learned.

… Definitely a drug deal, Peter decided. There was no way he could get anywhere _near_ a bank looking like this, not without a swarm of police cars on his tail before he even _got_ there.

Now all he had to do was wait until nighttime, head into the city, and hunt down the biggest crime he could find.

 

* * *

 

The second thing that went wrong was that even with super senses, it was harder than Peter would have thought to actually find any criminals. The gloves and boots combo was great for not leaving easily identifiable prints, but turned out to be not so good for his wall-crawling, which meant he had to walk. Plus it was hot.

_Really_ hot.

Every now and then, Peter had to make sure he was out of sight of any cameras or people and yank the lower half of his balaclava up to let some damn air in. At least super-senses _did_ come in handy for avoiding people, or Peter was pretty sure he'd have had the cops called on him before he'd even committed any crimes.

After nearly the twentieth time he ducked into an alley to avoid late-night revellers, Peter ended up stopping a mugging, and promptly shook the mugger down for cash after the victim had fled, netting nearly thirty dollars and a Star Wars keyring. It was a start.

“I hope you appreciate the irony of this,” Peter told him conversationally, as he tossed the knife into a dumpster. Wait. Should he have kept that for the Inevitable Drug Deal Bust-Up? Damn.

Ignoring the cry of “ _Fuck you!_ ” that followed this, Peter pocketed his loot, gently kicked the mugger in the knee (“ _Arghjesusfuck!_ ”), and skulked off to continue his criminal quest. And try not to overheat.

The next night of his (ig)noble search, Peter brought a bottle of water along. He ended up hitting a car thief over the head with it, too, which was probably only slightly classier than using a sock full of pennies, but the important part was that he was well-hydrated.

And twenty dollars richer from Mr. Attempted Car Thief, but whatever.

 


	2. In Which Peter Ups His Stupidity Beyond Previously Recorded Levels

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some vaguely worded stuff regarding undefined, illegal pornography this chapter.

With twenty-five days before the first payment was due, Peter had to give up on his undirected late-night wanderings. During the daytime, he could work on the costume or catch up on sleep - Aunt May thought he was at school, and the school (which probably wouldn't have noticed his absence anyway) thought he was on compassionate leave, thanks to an email purportedly from Aunt May. Considering his more than good grades so far, Peter had pretty much figured a week or so absence wouldn't do much to them.

Besides, this was _far_ more important, right?

The cash he'd taken had helped improved his outfit a little - more lightweight at least, and new gloves - thinner, less finely-knitted - allowed Peter to use his hands to stick to things, even if his boots were still a lost cause. So... yeah, things were improving, slightly.

Now all he needed to do was come up with eighty grand, and everything would be _juuuust_ golden!

Hahahahaheeee was screwed.

Deep breaths, Peter. Deep breaths.

And... nothing was fixed. Surprise.

Casually spraining the arm of yet another attempted mugger, Peter grabbed that knife too - man, he was really building a collection up - and eased the sobbing man to his knees, arm twisted behind his head. "Knives are bad, mmkay," Peter lectured him, ever-helpful, and jogged on. It was getting kinda surprising, the number of people that still tried to mug him, despite the balaclava/hoodie combo - huh. Actually, considering the poor lighting in the alleys, and Peter's new, enhanced senses, maybe they couldn't _see_ his face was covered until they got too close? Oops. Maybe he should have got a full mask or something.

Eh, tomorrow, maybe.

Right. He was getting nowhere like this, was he? The crumbs Peter was getting might help with day to day expenses, but he needed something bigger, not even for his own sake; and however much his stomach gave unpleasant flips at the thought, this was necessary, and important, and - and screw it. Pausing near a closed-up food stall, Peter closed his eyes, sucked in a deep, slow breath, and released it with a determination borne of something dark and self-loathing in the pit of his soul. Or possibly it was the chilli dog he'd grabbed for dinner. Whichever.

It was time to get serious.

* * *

Theodore Macready Junior insisted his clients call him 'Doctor Feelgood'. Despite this, said clients wouldn't be the least bit surprised to find out he was no doctor, as the pills and powders they bought from him were firmly on the 'less than' side of 'legal'. That is to say that Macready was a purveyor of substances only purchasable by those of a somewhat adventurous and anti-establishment nature.

Despite what his proudly middle-class parents might believe, Theodore Macready Junior was a drug dealer, okay?

It took Peter approximately three pointed questions to a member of the same line of work before he found out Macready's residence; as it turns out, when a weirdo martial artist in a balaclava drop kicks your friend in the face and demands the location of someone with a large stash of drugs (and thus, hopefully, money), it's a good idea to give said martial artist the address of one of your rivals rather than that of your supplier. Plus, _no-one_ like Macready. 'Doctor Feelgood'? Really? Tacky.

Never let it be said that drug dealers can't see an opportunity when it viciously beats the crap out of them in the dead of night.

"Thanks," Peter chirped, body thrumming with the adrenaline that was a natural result of casually beating the crap out of a pair of criminals. "That's really helpful of you!"

"Y're 'elcome," Big-J groaned, clutching his broken nose and trying not to look dangerous. "C'n we go, n'w?"

Peter smiled gently beneath the balaclava. "Sure," he said, senses easily noting the dealers' bodies relaxing as they started moving to get up and run. "Right after you give me all your cash."

"... 'uck."

* * *

 

Less than fifteen minutes later, Theodore 'Doctor Feelgood' Macready staggered out of bed to rapid banging at his apartment's front door, still half-asleep from a busy day of playing videogames for seventeen hours straight. Clients didn't _normally_ come to his door, true, but some of his friends were buyers, and he was one of the most convenient - huh. Squinting through the peephole, he couldn't really see anything, despite the previous loud insistence of whoever thought it was a good idea to wake people up past 1AM. The asshole.

Silently promising to increase the prices for whoever it turned out to be, Theodore hitched up his Star Trek pajama bottoms, turned around and managed to stumble a grand total of ten steps back up the hall when his front door exploded off its hinges, crunching into his hardwood floor, and revealing a pair of boot-shaped indentations (surrounded by cracks) on the outer side of said door.

There was also, Theodore realized, once his brain caught up enough to process what was going on, some lanky dude hanging by both arms from the lintel of the outside doorway. Oh, and Theodore had somehow ended up splayed on his floor, gawping at the scene.

"Hey," the hoodie-clad guy said, somewhat muffled by - was that a mask? Was he being robbed? "I'm here to rob you."

Oh. Well, that answered that one. Chasing the bundle of confused reactions around his mind, Theodore grabbed the immediate and useful one. "Please don't kill me!" He scrabbled back slightly on the floor, fingers failing to grasp the buffed surface. Was he really going to die just because his parents insisted hardwood floors looked better than carpet? "I have money!"

The guy shrugged, dropping lightly to the floor as he released his grip. "I know, man, that's why you're a good choice to rob. That and all the illegal stuff you've been pulling." His head swiveled, presumably glancing around the hall, despite his eyes being hidden beneath the tight mask and its creepy, tinted eyes. "Okay, dude, where's your cash?"

"My..." Theodore swallowed. His heart was racing sure, but - the police would be here soon, right? Robber-dude wasn't exactly quiet, and it was a full apartment building. And most burglars didn't kill people, did they? Not if the victims didn't resist? "My cash? It's in the bank." Where a sensible person puts it. From the way the burglar stopped looking around and fixated on him though, it was the wrong answer. "B-but I have more! In the apartment! I'll show you!" Oh God, please let him not pee himself.

The dude sighed, slumping slightly as he ambled into the apartment. "You need to stop screeching like that, man, you'll give me a headache."

The obvious response to that, especially as Theodore saw the top of a - was that a closed switchblade? - poking out of the guy's jeans pocket. Shit. He was armed. He could kick down a locked, double-bolted door _and_ he had a knife. Theodore tried doubly hard not to piss himself, as burglar-dude busied himself with rooting through the hallway desk's drawer.

"Wha- oh, this?" The dude paused, seeing Theodore's terrified gaze, and reaching down to pat the blade. "Yeah, kind of running out of room. Check out how many morons kept trying to fight me tonight!" And then - then he stuck both hands into his hoodie pockets and _pulled out what must have been a dozen blades_ _._ Jesus. How many other places had this whackjob robbed tonight?! How many of those poor bastards who resisted were still alive?! That was definitely some blood on some of them, barely dry.

Burglar-murderer-nutjob chuckled, shaking his head in obvious amusement as he looked at the knives. And a knuckle-duster too? Theodore couldn't help the whine that crawled out of his throat, nails digging into the floorboards. "Seriously," the psycho mused, shoving them back into his pockets, the ones without sheathes or covers clinking together. "You wouldn't believe how dangerous these things are! One wrong move, and _bam_ , you'll end up with a few inches in your gut." He laughed, shaking his head.

"I'll show you everything," Theodore whispered, voice hoarse. His throat was strangely dry again.

The psycho's mouth moved under the mask - a smile? "That's good," he said. "And if I find out you've lied about _anything_ , I'll come right back and finish the job."

Theodore showed him where all the money and valuables were, as quickly and quietly, standing in a corner while the monster filled two of Theodore's duffle bags with goods.

Then he collapsed on the lounge floor, burst into tears, and finally pissed himself.

* * *

Peter winced plenty on the way home, despite having made a brief detour into the drug dealer's bathroom to pad his hoodie pocket with toilet paper. Man, he _really_ shouldn't have kept those knives, even if leaving them with all his assailants was a bad idea - the uncovered ones were often sharp enough to jab through the cheap material of his clothing, and he'd had several pinpricks and a couple of light scratches across his stomach, even moving carefully. Like he'd said to the guy, one wrong move, and he really _would_ end up stabbing himself. Thankfully, he hadn't had to move too quickly at any point; for some reason, the dealer hadn't even tried to resist! Lucky to get one that was such a wuss, Peter guessed. He really wouldn't have wanted to go back and break in again.

Still, he'd packed the bags so full there wasn't room for the knives, so Peter had to make do with sneaking upstairs - thank god that Aunt May was a deep sleeper. And that he knew where all the creaky steps were. And that he could just ease his sneakers off and climb across the walls anyway.

Yeah, that part kind of helped a lot.

Undressing as quietly as possible in his room, Peter spared a quick glance at the cuts - already healing, his new regeneration was one of the nicer bonuses to the weird spider powers - and crouched over the duffle bags to unzip them, alert for any sound of Aunt May waking.  Just over three thousand dollars in bills from Mr. Dealer's under-the-bed emergency stash - nice. Several expensive watches and pieces of jewellery - nice. First edition, first issue Waspman comic, framed, and binder of rare cards from a game so nerdy even _Peter_ didn't play it - nice. Designer fedora - okay, he'd just stolen that one to fuck with him, and as a favor to women everywhere.

Along with a few other items... well, it came nowhere near covering the full debt, but it was a good start.

Rolling his shoulders, Peter straightened, breathing a (quiet) sigh of relief. That was one good night done - just a few more nights as lucky as this over the next few weeks shouldn't be _that_ hard to manage, in a city this big, full of this much crime. For the moment, Peter shoved one of the bags under his bed, tugging a sleek, top-of-the-line laptop out of the other one, along with the power cord. He'd almost felt guilty over taking it, until he remembered the dipshit dealt drugs, drove a sports car and owned a wardrobe full of designer gear. If he didn't have the important stuff backed up somewhere... well, hospital fees trumped this dude's probably illegally-downloaded music collection.

 _Sorry if you can't remember all your online log-in details_ , Peter mentally apologized, focusing more on starting up the laptop. Once it was properly wiped, it should get him a few hundred dollars closer. Start-up screen - password? No big deal for Peter Parker, genius extraordinaire and free tech support for most of the teachers. Desktop with cycle of lame backgrounds. Then a quick check through programs and files to look for anything that might tracking the laptop before - wait.

Wait.

Fuck.

 _Fuck_.

Peter shut the laptop down, glad he'd kept his gloves on. Closed the lid. Tugged his mask back on. Crept to his desk, pulled a sheet of paper and pen from their places, and started writing a letter to accompany the laptop to the police station, because if he dealt with this himself, he'd be going from burglary to murder, and Aunt May didn't need _that_ on top of everything else, much as Doctor Fucked-Up might deserve it and more.

Looked like he had another trip to make, but that was fine. Peter wouldn't be sleeping tonight anyway.

* * *

The morning police raid on one Thomas Macready Junior's apartment was little trouble - the door had somehow been removed (kicked?) from its hinges, and just shoved back into position temporarily, with the help of duct tape. The neighbors, who had kept to themselves despite the loud noises from his apartment several hours earlier, emerged to watch with great interest as Macready was brought out under the weight of several charges, while a team swept his apartment with the ease of training and practice and the motivation of paychecks and sheer disgust.

"He said he was there because of all the stuff I'd been doing!" It was hard to stop him babbling once he'd started, which in this case, was a good thing; the interview room's cameras were collecting all his terrified words perfectly, despite the urgings of the public defender beside him. "He said - he said I'd end up with a _knife_ if my gut if I resisted!"

The officer interviewing him, who'd had to do a great many of these before, thought it would have been fantastic if this _had_ happened, but sadly, wasn't allowed to say so. "And these files were on the laptop before he took it?" Her voice was professional, as always. "They were downloaded by yourself?"

Macready opened his mouth to deny it, even as the lawyer jumped in to tell him what to say, to do, when the words of that - that _nutjob_ rang in his head.

 _If I find out you've lied about_ anything _, I'll come right back and finish the job._

Oh. Oh God, no.

* * *

Too busy searching a pawn shop willing to pay a decent sum for items without proof of ownership, Peter missed the article on the _Daily Bugle_ 's website, a piece of news come in too late for the actual paper, regarding the 'terrifying vigilante' who'd revealed a major local businessman's son's crimes and drove him to a full confession. From the looks of the praise lavished on the 'masked hero', the editor-in-chief sure did love the guy.

More importantly though, Peter burned the fedora.


End file.
